Stress And Tension Relief – A Holistic Approach

Stress and tension can cause a domino effect in our lives. Most people suffering from the effects of stress tend to get exhausted easily, get very temperamental, become more prone to diseases, lose a lot of sleep and miss out on the best things in life. Keeping stress and tension relief can significantly improve the quality of your life.

Stress And Tension Problem – Why Is It Difficult To Solve?

While there are many stress relief tips and tension solutions that you can read in books, magazines, and blogs and hear on health shows, not all of them seem to work. Stress tension still manages to creep in to wreak havoc in our lives.

One of the reasons you are having trouble dealing with these problems is that you will only go for one or two solutions. Stress, along with tension, is more than skin deep. It goes deeper into the physical and works its way to your mental, emotional and spiritual aspects.

The solution?

Try a holistic approach.

A holistic approach lets you solve mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical stress and tension. It allows you to create a balance within your body so you can finally break free from the shackles of these problems.

Stress And Tension Relief – Physical

There are many ways to relieve these problems on a physical level. When promoting physical freedom from tension and stress, you have to make sure that your home is conducive for relaxation.

This way, when your mind perceives a relaxing image of your home, your body will immediately follow suit. If you are at home, you immediately go into a stress-free mode.

Try not to bring work home. Leave work and other issues in front of your doorstep and make sure nothing will sneak into your abode.

Relish the idea of going home to a relaxing warm bath. The warmth of your bath water can ease up tension in your body. It will also help improve blood circulation to reduce pressure spots. To add a touch of calming effect, mix a few drops of chamomile or lavender oil to your bathwater.

Do not immediately go to sleep when you are feeling tensed or stressed out. Spend a few minutes of your time stretching first. Loosen up tight muscles in your neck, shoulders, back, hips and feet. Try simple yoga poses.

Practice deep breathing before going to bed. This will help improve oxygen intake. Most of us unconsciously hold our breath when we are stressed out or hard-pressed for time. It is only when we get to relax that we find ourselves deeply breathing.

Make a conscious effort to breathe deeply from now in. This way, the cells in your body will be rejuvenated with the healthy distribution of oxygen.

Once in a while, get a message. Those newly-formed muscle nodules can cause pain in the future, so you might want to remove them while they haven’t done their worst yet. Warm, mentholated patches might also work in strategically removing tension and pressure spots.

Stress And Tension Relief – Emotional

Anyone can experience an emotional breakdown. Even men who are all too fond of their machismo can succumb to emotional stress. The problem with emotions is that we don’t always have control over them. Some people allow their emotions to get the best of them.

• When trying to relieve emotional stress and tension, make sure you understand what is causing your emotional stress?
• Are there people who are making you feel lonely and down?
• Do you have a workmate whose idea of a good time is putting you down and bullying you?
• Have you felt emotionally dispassionate about your work, and you think you no longer have the vitality to put up with it?
• Do you have the kind of boss that never fails to criticize mistakes and embarrasses you in front of your colleagues?

One way to relieve stress on an emotional level is to find an outlet for it. Find someone who has the patience to listen to your endless musings about your work. You can try building a support group.

Meet up with your friends every Friday night and talk about your individual hang-ups.

Aside from pouring your emotional turmoil out in the open and releasing it, you also get to understand what other people are going through.

Misery loves company, so you and your friends can get to comfort each other. It also helps to know that you are not the only person dealing with these emotional problems. You can also afford to divert your attention to your friends’ more pressing emotional concerns.

I understand that many of us do not always have the convenience of having friends to talk to every week. Most of your friends might be abroad or working in a different place. In that case, you can seek the help of online communities.

Online communities can offer you opportunities to have online friends. What is great about this is that it offers anonymity.

You can pour your innermost feelings online and not worry about embarrassing yourself. But the great thing is, most online communities share the same issues. And because of that, they don’t judge.

Stress And Tension Relief – Mental

Being inundated with a lot of things to think about every single day is mentally taxing. In this day and age, it is not uncommon for a person to withdraw from many things because they are mentally drained. Some of the symptoms of mental fatigue include:

• poor concentration
• trouble catching up on conversations
• short attention span
• forgetfulness and
• low energy levels.

When you are stressed out on a mental level, there is no way you can follow the “mind over matter” technique. Having a complete grasp of your mental faculties is a great way of managing stress and tension.

To manage mental stress, you have to make sure that your brain functions are really up to par. That involves:

• practicing mind games
• keeping your memory polished
• eating memory-enhancing and brain foods
• taking the right vitamins
• exercising a lot and
• sleeping on time.

The brain needs a lot of nourishment to function properly. Go the extra mile in preparing brain-friendly foods or taking supplements beneficial to your mental health.

As mentioned earlier, exercising helps immensely. It can allow the brain to release feel-good hormones that can improve your mood and clear your mind.

Spend at least 30 minutes of your time participating in physical fitness activities. Dancing, jogging, and biking are some simple activities you can easily incorporate into your life.

Make sure you also take a break from your work. Try allotting a day of the week for your time of reflection. Spend the day walking in a quiet park, reading a book, painting, watching funny movies, pampering yourself, or sleeping.

Stress And Tension Relief – Spiritual

Much of our understanding of spiritual health comes from religion. But the spirit is actually at the core of our functions. When you are emotionally, mentally, and physically fatigued, your spirit might also be fatigued.

To heal the spirit, you have to understand more how it functions. In this case, I want to share with you a  heartfulness meditation video that I watch and regularly practice. It should better explain how our spirit plays a major role in our existence.

Recommended Book: Controlling Stress and Tension (9th Edition) by Daniel Giordano, Dorothy E. Dusek, et al.